Only Her, Once
by raining-down-hearts
Summary: He left her, and she loved him so damn much. A quick one-shot on the pain of that first, awful breakup.


The girl lay in her bed and stared out her window. The cheap white accordion blinds were only half open, but she had her head very close to the windowpane, and so had a good view of gray clouds. Sometimes a V of geese would fly over, honking companionably to each other. There were vague traffic and assorted city sounds around her. The contrast made the natural geese even lovelier. She thought about being a goose and liked it at first, but then she imagined standing a half a mile up in the sky with nothing beneath her at all and it made her curl up into a ball.

She kept watching, pressing her forehead up against the coolness of her wall. There was no real sky to see, only solid gray and a telephone pole. Another line of geese went over. There were only a few birds in this one, not enough to make a full V, but they gamely fell into a single leg of the formation anyway. She watched the empty places until they flew out of view and felt the empty parts of her chest ache in sympathy.

A week ago, the girl's bed hadn't been lonely. A boy had lain there and watched the flocks fly over with her, except he hadn't really, because the boy didn't care about geese. He cared about things like cars and video games, and always she turned away from the skies to put her gaze on whatever he was watching. His eyes were his best feature, beautiful, large and almond shaped and deep red. One day he turned the eyes on another girl and then it was over. She was alone in her empty spot, cut in half, a Siamese twin from a failed operation, a horrible leper, diseased pieces dropping silently off her wherever she went. Work was hell. She bit her tongue and bit her lips to keep her eyes (plain and murky green) from welling up, but it only worked sometimes. School was hell, too, except worse because without the physical movement of work that came during a mission, her mind had even more leisure to poke and prod the sore bits.

So now she was lying in bed alone and being cold and miserable alone. Last week she had come home to find the boy still sleeping in her bed and had gleefully stripped naked and crawled next to him, burrowing under his arm and tucking her icy fingers and toes into his warmth. Now there wasn't anything warm at all in the whole room, it seemed. She was beginning to believe the bed was haunted. It was never warm when she was trying to fall asleep, but inevitably she would wake up uncomfortably sticky, hair soaked in sweat. Window open or window closed, it didn't matter. Her internal mayhem was rusting out her body's thermostat. Soon she would be like a lizard or an alligator, reliant on the sunshine to keep her blood flowing and helpless without outside heat.

The boy complained when she warmed her fingers and toes on him. He always let her, though, and sometimes he would pull her close to him in the way she especially loved, half lying over her with his arms around her and her head nestled in his chest. It made her feel loved and safe. His weight on her body was delicious.

But life goes on, time passes, and a tragic half of all marriages fail, and they weren't even engaged so she should have expected it, really. Odds are odds and the entire world obeys them. How many people stay with their first loves? And yet it is mythologized, part of classic Americana. It's all about the adored "high school sweethearts" that got married at 18 and had lots of babies and are now grandparents and never spared their eyes for anyone else. Except perhaps they did, and isn't it better to know in the end then to live your life out with someone who gave away their gaze? At least that's what she told herself in the moments when her logical brain won out.

Her brain was anxious. It recognized the stress, the quick pulse, the roiling stomach bile, the crushing headaches, and worked in self-preservation, telling her, "It's part of life. Give it time. This too shall pass. Other boys wanted you before him, someone will want you again. You won't lie in bed alone forever." Her friends all said the same thing, and told her that she was beautiful, more than the other girl. This was a little helpful, but then she would think about the sound of his breathing, the other girl's slim tall figure pressed against him, her heart would engulf the brain and she would cry. Her tears were hot and made her eyelashes hurt afterwards.

The girl's mother didn't know how to help her. They were the type of family that didn't touch much, never hugging, and after the mother left their small trust was gone too. This problem couldn't be fixed over the phone. So she couldn't cry to her mother, and although she loved her father very much, she knew it would worry him to see her hurting, so she couldn't cry to him either. Perhaps this upbringing was why she had fallen so hard for the red-eyed boy. He touched her and cuddled with her and defended her life and fell asleep with her every night and in doing these things, he got her quite addicted, though probably without meaning to. He did have a kind heart and no real wish to hurt. It was just ignorance and selfishness in the way of young people. Her brain told her that, but her heart screamed and railed and shook the bars and broke glass just for the vicious sound.

None of this is special or unique. Her bouts of bipolar rage and stomach-turning sorrow have happened a thousand times before and, unless the Mayans were right, will happen ten thousand times again. Girls fall in love and believe that they have met their fabled other half when in reality it's not so much an entwined-hands situation as it is a lock-and-key, if you see the meaning. Sadly, it's skeleton keys we're referring to here, and therein lies the trouble between boys and girls.

So the girl lies in her cold bed and watches the geese fly past, over the concrete and asphalt and metal. They leave it all with behind with their wings. She lies there and lies there and cries sporadically, small little tears that well up slowly, one after the other. It doesn't matter to her that he didn't get her anything for her birthday, or never told her she looked pretty without prompting, or said he loved her first, or gave her back rubs, all the things she did for him because she adored his razor smile. He had held her tight in his arms and loved her and only her, once.

Author says: So! Even though I ship Soul and Maka together forever and ever, I ran across this and thought, what the hell, I'll post it, even though I wrote it a long time ago. It was actually about myself, (I know, emo right? I can laugh at it now!) during, you guessed it, a pretty ouchy breakup. I just changed some stuff and *BAM* SoMa! Please let me know what you think. Reviews give me the faith to keep writing. :)


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